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The Bloodstained Hands of Iran’s Leftist Intellectuals and Fedayeen Guerrillas

By Manuchehr Yazdi (Pan-Iranist Party)
Nimrooz.com
April 16, 2004

Previously in our journal, People’s Government (Pan-Iranist Party), we gave a brief account of the Tudeh Party (Communist) and the communist movement in Iran, noting their crimes and treason during Iran’s occupation by the Allies, and the perilous years when the people of Iran grappled with the pressures exerted by foreign states. We related how the educated and intellectual members of the Tudeh Party and of the Left added to the suffering of the people of Iran, and how they managed to push the nation to the brink of annexation and breakup.

To continue, from 1970 on, with the beginning of the Shah’s struggle against the oil consortiums, as the onslaught of British and Russian policies, along with those of certain Arab states such as Egypt and Iraq, targeted Iran’s interests and resources, beating the drums for the annexation of Khuzestan, Bahrain and the Arvand River…political opposition in Iran transformed into terrorism and urban warfare. The first political organization that under such dangerous conditions resorted to appealing to a foreign state, namely to Egypt’s Jamal Abdel-Nasser, to provide its dissatisfied members with military and terrorist training was the “Nehzate Azadi” Organization, which we shall discuss later. It was at this time that two terrorist movements simultaneously made their appearance. One emerged from the belly of the Tudeh Party and was named “The Iranian People’s Fadayee Guerrillas”; the other emerged from Nehzate Azadi and was named “The Iranian People’s Mujahedin”.

The founder of Fadayeen (literally meaning those sacrificing themselves) was Bijan Jazani. He was the son of Rahmatullah Jazani, a famous communist and Tudeh Party member who had escaped to the Soviet Union. Bijan’s mother was a Jew who had abandoned his son and gone to live in Israel. Bijan felt this abandonment by his parents in every cell of his body. He married Mahin Ghoreishi, a Marxist militant, transforming her into a capable intelligence operative.

Bijan Jazani was a well-read, educated young man whose psychological frustrations veered him away from national loyalty towards an illusion. He owned an advertising agency called “Tabli Film” from which he profited greatly, owned a modern home and enjoyed a comfortable life. Eventually, after years of secret activity, the educated, intellectual and charming Bijan founded the organization with the help of three of his friends: Hassan Zia Zarifi, Jalili-Afshar and Kalantari (brother of Manuchehr Kalantari, one of the leaders of the “Confederation of Iranian Students” in London). But Iran’s counterintelligence and security service, cognizant of activities of anti-Iranian organizations and in control of the internal situation, infiltrated two of their cells, putting two of their safe-houses, one serving as a weapons depot, under surveillance. Under watch in a meeting on Malek Street to pick up weapons, he was surrounded and arrested as he drove away in his Volkswagen, in which several firearms were found. Two of Bijan’s collaborators mentioned above were also later arrested and the three were charged with armed activities and forming a Marxist organization. Although according to existing laws and based on their own confessions they threatened Iran’s national security, in the “fascist regime” (according to certain intellectuals) of the time they were sentenced to 15 years in prison.

They were transferred from Tehran’s prison to the city of Rasht, where they met with Hamid Ashraf, Hamid Sadeghinezhad and Amir Parviz Pooyan, and planned a new strategy to continue their war. During these meetings the organization became active once more, this time operating as two teams: One based in the city and another operating in the jungles. The latter, under the command of Ali Akbar Safa’i Farahani, stockpiled equipment and supplies in the jungles of Siah-kal. The city-based team had the task of finding new safe houses and recruiting new members, looking particularly for those coming to Iran with terrorist training in Palestine or elsewhere.

Soon a member of the jungle-based team by the name of Iraj Neyri came under the suspicion of the local villagers, seized and turned over to the Gendarmerie. To rescue their comrade the jungle team resorted to an armed attack on the Gendarmerie post where Neyri was held. The operation was led by Safa’i Farahani, a secretary of Tehran’s Art Institute, trained in terrorist operations and guerrilla warfare under Yasir Arafat, holding the rank of a “captain” and generally known as “Abu Abbass”. This young, educated teacher had trained in an Arab terrorist camp to open fire on Iranians, to the benefit of oil companies, foreign powers and international communists. One communist and a number of Gendarmes were killed in the attack, the rest of the guerrillas took flight but the assailants failed to rescue Neyri.

With the arrest of Iraj Neyri the urban cell was soon discovered and disbanded, and many of its members were put under arrest. Although the organization was thus virtually destroyed, nevertheless with the help of Amir Parviz Pooyan, Mohammad Ali Partowi, Mohammad Saffari Ashtiani and Eskandar Sadeghinezhad a year later it became active once more, once more setting in motion more terrorist acts, explosions and murders.

In following this anti-people path, the interests of the people of Iran were never taken into consideration. The militants would commit any crime to set Iran aflame. One such barbaric act, which fortunately did not succeed, was the plan to blow up a one hundred thousand-seat stadium during the Asian Games in Tehran. In a show of unity, and in order to embarrass the Iranian government, terrorist groups had decided to use this opportunity of brandishing Iran a disorderly state to the fullest extent. This is how the plan was foiled:

The counterintelligence unit of Imperial Iranian Air Force, having become suspicious of an officer by the name of Mohammad Baradaran Khosroshahi, reports him to Iran’s counterintelligence and internal security service (Savak) for surveillance. The pursuit and observation of this officer proves rewarding and he along with six others is arrested in a safe house in Salsabil. The confessions obtained from these individuals revealed the names of some 70 members of the Fedayeen, all of whom were soon arrested. One of these worked in the office of Mehdi Bazargan (the republic’s, and Ayatullah Khomeini’s, first Islamic Prime Minister), but it was another, Iraj Khalaf-Beigi, who informed on the horrendous plot to blow up the stadium, revealing the name of Habib Baradaran Khosroshahi as the brain behind the operation.

Habib Baradaran Khosroshahi was a high level employee of the Department of Physical Education and personally responsible for the management of sports stadiums. He told of the plan to place numerous bombs under the seats of spectators and even revealed their exact location. The watchfulness of authorities, day and night, prevented the massacre of at least 5000 people in this terrorist operation and revealed the real nature, an the true color, of these educated, intellectual militant gentlemen, the lovers of the oppressed and the exploited “worker”.

But Habib Khosroshahi, whose 400 page testimony had effectively demolished the organization, announced to have a meeting with Hamid Ashraf and asked the authorities to take him to the appointed place. Hamid Ashraf, who until then had murdered 13 people and was sought by the police, was considered a top priority and so Khosroshahi’s proposal was met with approval. They took him to the place of meeting, near an intersection, and had no choice but to distance themselves from the scene. Taking advantage of the opportunity Hamid threw himself under the wheels of a bus and committed suicide. His incriminating confession had rendered him a worthless agent. No longer able to play the role of the militant intellectual, he chose to play the martyr. In fact, his decision proved advantageous and the “The Iranian People’s Fadayee Guerrillas” later claimed that Habib Khosroshahi had been “martyred under torture!”

Another difficulty connected with the Asian Games in Tehran was the presence of Israeli athletes who had to be specially protected to prevent a repetition of the Munich massacre. And so their arrival time was first announced to be 5 p.m., followed by “10 o’clock at night”, to be followed by yet another announcement that they would arrive the following day! Actually, Israeli athletes had entered Tehran 24 hours prior to the first announcement and were resting peacefully as these announcements were broadcasted!

During the period when Hamid Ashraf was the leader of the Fedayeen, 14 safe houses had been set up and Ms. Nastaran Alagha had the responsibility of managing them. These houses were full of educated, worldly, well-trained, dedicated young men and women who believed that in order to serve oppressed people one must carry grenades in one’s pocket, a machine gun in one’s hand and a cyanide capsule in one’s mouth. These militants did not realize they were merely tools in paving the way for the destruction of Iran. Iran’s Savak soon discovered these houses and laid the necessary plans to raid them. The safe house in which Hamid Ashraf lived was located in the capital’s New Tehran district. After surrounding the house, security agents used loud speakers to tell those inside of their situation. Moments later heavy smoke was seen coming out of the house, a sign that documents were being burned. This was followed by the sound of two shots and Hamid Ashraf, under the protection of his friends’ fire, managed to get away with an injured leg. The rest of the team was killed in the battle.

After the gunfight, upon entering the house the agents observed the corpses of two children. They were the nine-year-old Naser Shaygan Shamasbi and the twelve-year-old Arzhang Shaygan Shamasbi. They had been shot in the head and executed. It was later revealed that Hamid Ashraf had executed the two children before taking flight to prevent them from describing what they had witnessed.

Having escaped at 5-6 o’clock in the morning, Hamid Ashraf went to another safe house in Ghasem Abad, but finding the place insecure he left the place at 9 in the morning. By accident he was approached by a police car, carrying an officer, two intelligence agents and the driver. As they were not on the case, the passengers did not recognize Ashraf. Ashraf opened fire on the passengers, killing all four, and took off with the police car killing a colonel on Mohseni Square on the way. Thus during only a few hours, the leader of intellectual militants “of Iranian people” had murdered six innocent people. On June 29, 1976, during a meeting in a safe house in yet another part of Tehran, Iran’s security agents surrounded Ashraf and ten highest-ranking members of the organization. The “rebels” opened fire and in the bloody battle which pursued all met their deaths. Hamid Ashraf, the leader of the organization, had managed to get away from the scene as before but was killed, while running on a roof, with a bullet to the head.

With the death of its leader, highest-ranking members, plus those killed in these battles and the arrest of everyone else, the organization was effectively destroyed. Only six or so members remained who, no sooner having been released under the administrations of Sharif-Emami and Shahpour Bakhtiar, each became the leader of a new group and added fuel to the ferocious flames of the Islamic Revolution.

The information here was compiled from newspapers published during the first years of the revolution, particularly from notices and inserts in Keyhan and Etela’at. During those honeymoon days of the revolution, proclamations by the organization itself (for it was launched once more), letters by the parents of the killed militants and the confessions of surviving militants are all authentic documents testifying to the deeds of those educated and intellectual individuals who played an important role in the downfall of the Iranian government, and the bringing to power of the Islamic regime…for which they received their due pay.

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The groups mentioned above remain active to this date and are considered, by some naive Iranians who have not understood the nature of these organizations, as part of the opposition. This article has been posted here mainly for their benefit.

Thank you for posting this very interesting article!
BTW do you have or know were I can find that article written by an ex-IRI official (or IRI official) who reputed all the false claims that under the Shah tens of thousands were killed! and that there were around 3000 people killed who were mainly tudehis and others working against the state?

Take care!

P.S. If anyone knows what i'm referring to could you please help me find that article._________________JAVID IRAN!

That is the reason I say it didn't matter how much education these people had, they were bunch of brain-washed, leftist, traitor, self-promoter, only thinking about imposing their own ideology, by joing hands with bunch of rag-heads......
The problem is now we have TERRORISTS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD ON THE PAYROLL, THAT IS ADDED TO THESE IDIOTIC, BRAIN-WASHED LEFTISTS. I don't now how one can uproot these people without a very bloody civil war....

Actually, the total number of militants killed in the terrorist war from February 1971 (when it began) to October 1977 was 341, not 3000!

The figure 3164 refers to the TOTAL number of those killed in the revolution, including the terrorists, from 1963 to 1979, of whom 2781 were killed in 78-79.

Also, what I’ve tried to do in my posts on the subject has been to show that they did not merely work against the state, if by state it is meant the government of Iran only and not the nation. My point has always been that they worked, and continue to work, against the very concept of the Iranian nation. They themselves have never kept their anti-nationalist ideology a secret.

My main problem with this article is that Yazdi does not at all take into consideration the possibility that many of these Leftists jointed these organizations for motives other than the one’s we usually associate with Marxists in general. Yazdi feels remorse for how the militants “lost their way.” If was clear then, it is more than clear today that many of these individuals had ulterior motives and had not “lost their way.”

Dear Blank,

“I don't now how one can uproot these people without a very bloody civil war”

I’ve heard some otherwise intelligent commentators expressing the view that these groups will disappear with the fall of the Islamic Republic. That, in my opinion, is wishful thinking. These enemies will remain for they can easily operate under different political masks. “Easily” because, as we all know, Iranians have very little historical memory. I think a civil war can be easily averted if these individuals and groups are exposed. Knowledge IS power.

Rumours, exaggerated claims by the leaders of the Islamic revolution and a disinformation campaign against the fallen monarchy, not to mention Western media reports that the imperial regime was guilty of "mass murders", has finally been challenged by a former researcher at the Martyrs Foundation (Bonyad Shahid). The findings by Emad al-Din Baghi, now a respected historian, has caused a stir in the Islamic republic for it boldly questions the true number of casualties suffered by the anti-Shah movement between 1963 and 1979.

In the aftermath of the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolution, ordered the creation of the Martyrs Foundation with the sole purpose of identifying the names of the so-called "martyrs" and provide financial support for their families as well as those who had sustained injuries in the fierce street battles with royalist troops. The necessary funds were immediately raised from the assets seized from the high officials in the Shah's regime, many of whom had been executed after summary trials.

For many years the Martyrs Foundation collected the names of the victims of the anti-Shah revolution classifying them by age, sex, education, profession and address. The files were kept secret until 1996/7 when a decision was made to make public the figures on the anniversary of the revolution. At about this time, Emad al-Dib Baghi, was hired as a researcher and editor of the bonyad's magazine "Yad Yaran" (Remembering our Comrades) to make sense of the data. By the time his work had finished he was told that the names were not to be made public. The reason given was that to pursue the matter would run contrary to the statements made by the late Ayatollah Khomeini and his successors who claimed that "60,000 men, women and children were martyred by the Shah's regime."

Emad al-Din Baghi who left the Martyrs Foundation to write two books on the subject claims that the authorities felt that releasing the true statistics would simply confuse the public. So, officials continued to stick to the exaggerated numbers. During a debate in the Majlis at the height of the US hostage crisis, an Islamic deputy claimed that giving in to America would be an insult to the memory of "70,000 martyrs and 100,000 wounded who fought to destroy the rotten monarchy." In fact, by continuing the myth that so many people had been killed, the regime was able to buy a certain legitimacy for its "noble revolution" and excesses.

"Sooner or later the truth was bound to come out," Baghi argued. In his opinion history should be based on objective findings and not baseless rumours which was the root of the anti-Shah hysteria and street demonstrations in 1978 and 1979. The true numbers are fascinating because contrary to the official view they are quite low and highly disproportionate to the hundreds of thousands murdered in the last 24 years in the Islamic republic.

The statistical breakdown of victims covering the period from 1963 to 1979 adds up to a figure of 3,164. Of this figure 2,781 were killed in nation wide disturbances in 1978/79 following clashes between demonstrators and the Shah's army and security forces. Baghi has no reason to doubt these figures and believes that it is probably the most comprehensive number available with the possible exception of a few names that were not traced.

During the years separating the arrest of Khomeini on 5th June 1963 for instigating the riots against the Shah's White Revolution and his return from exile on 1st February 1979, most of the 3,164 victims were in Tehran, Rey and Shemiran and 731 were killed in riots in the provinces which constitutes 14% of the country. Most of the casualties were in central Tehran and the poorer southern areas. Of this number 32 "martyrs" belong to the 1963 riots who were killed in 19 different parts of the Iranian capital. All were male and from southern Tehran.

Despite this revelation all officially sanctioned books in Iran dealing with the history of the Islamic revolution write of "15,000 dead and wounded". Such wild figures have found its way in Western accounts.

Another myth is the number of those killed on Friday, 8th September 1978 in the infamous Jaleh Square massacre. On that day the Iranian government imposed martial law in Tehran after troops had fired at several thousand anti-government demonstrators in the capital. The opposition and Western journalists claimed that the massacre left between 95 and 3,000 dead, depending on widely varying estimates. Historians agree that the bloody incident was to be a crucial turning point in the revolution. Baghi refutes those numbers as "grossly inflated."

The figures published by Baghi speaks of 64 killed among them two females – one woman and a young girl. On the same day in other parts of the capital a total of 24 people died in clashes with martial law forces among them one female. Therefore, according to Baghi, the number of people "martyred" on Black Friday is 88 of which 64 were gunned down in Jaleh Square. These statistics are closer to the figures announced by Dr Ameli Tehrani (executed by the revolutionaries) who served in Prime Minister Sharif Emami's government. The Shah's officials repeatedly spoke of 86 people dead and 205 wounded in clashes.

But at the time nobody in Iran was prepared to believe the government version, says Baghi, himself an ardent revolutionary in those troubled days. Instead rumours turned into facts and made headlines further weakening the Shah's crumbling regime. Opposition leaders quoted figures as high as "tens of thousands" and agitators spread stories that soldiers had fired on the people from helicopters piloted by Israelis. Michel Focault, a leading French journalist, who covered the Jaleh Square wrote of "2,000 to 3,000 victims" and later increased the figures to "4,000 people killed" adding that the demonstrators had no fear of death.

The number of non-Muslims who died for the revolution was deemed by the Martyrs Foundation as "too insignificant" to be included in the list. Many of them were die-hard Marxist guerrillas who had fought running battles with the Shah's secret police known as Savak. In the 1970s the Shah's regime faced many threats from so-called Islamic-Marxist terrorists who carried out assassinations of top officials, kidnappings, bank thefts and bomb attacks on cinemas. Savak was given special powers to deal with this "terrorist" threat and appeared successfully ruthless in its "dirty war." Savak's crude brutality received a lot of criticism in the West. Amnesty International reported cases of illegal detention and torture.

But how many were killed? Baghi is methodical in the way he states numbers. Firstly, he claims that the total number of guerrillas killed between the 1971 Siahkal incident during which armed Marxists attacked a police station in a Caspian village and the February 1979 insurrection is 341.

The figure 341 is made up of 177 persons killed in shoot-outs with the Shah's security forces; 91 were executed for "anti-state activities"; 42 died under torture; 15 were arrested and "disappeared", 7 committed suicide rather than be captured, and 9 were shot while escaping. From among the guerrilla groups who died fighting the imperial regime the Marxist Fedayeen Khalq organisation suffered the highest losses. From the total figure of 341 killed, 172 were Fedayeens (50%); 73 Mujaheddin Khalq (21%); 38 fringe communists (11%); 30 Mujaheddin marxists before changing their ideology to Islamic (9%) and 28 Islamists (8%).

For completion sake, Baghi has added 5 other names to his long list. Four of them (Sadeq Amani, Reza Safar Herandi, Mohammad Bokharaie and Morteza Niknejad) were executed by firing squad after a military tribunal found them guilty of assassinating Prime Minister Mansour in 1965. The fifth name belonged to Reza Shams Abadi, a member of the Imperial Guard, who opened fire on the Shah as he came out of his limousine at the Marble Palace. The assassin was shot down by the king's bodyguards. By adding these five names to the 341 we get the figure of 346 non-demonstrators killed between 1963 and 1979.

In addition to the 32 demonstrators killed in the June 1963 pro-Khomeini riots two other persons were shot dead in the following weeks in an undisclosed part of Tehran. On 2nd November 1963 a certain Mohammad Ismail Rezaie was murdered in jail and on the same day Haj Mohammad Reza Teyb was shot by firing squad at the Heshmatiyeh army barracks.

The mysterious death of the famous wrestler Gholam Reza Takhti in 1967 was attributed to Savak but Baghi has established that Takhti committed suicide. Unfortunately, Baghi makes no mention of the Islamic philosopher Ali Shariati and the Imam's eldest son, Mustapha Khomeini. Both died of heart attacks in London and Najaf respectively. At the time of their deaths there were many rumours that they had been eliminated by Savak agents but subsequent evidence proves the opposite. Nevertheless, the negative effect on public opinion was tremendous and played a major role in eroding support for the Shah's regime.

In any case, by adding Takhti's name the total of those killed for underground action against the Shah's regime comes to 383 which added to the 2,781 "martyrs" would mean that 3,164 Iranians lost their lives in the revolution against the monarchy and not 60,000 as the Imam had stated. In time, other historians may take up the task of finding the truth about the countless people executed or eliminated during the brutal 24 years rule of the mullahs. But that will only be possible in a free Iran and the findings may prove to be a greater shock.

I'm sorry for the late reply. Many thanks for posting the Kadivar article; the title sounded familiar but I couldn't quite place it. The essentials of the report by Baghi are recounted there, but time permitting I will also translate the report.

Dear Khorshid thank-you for posting this article, and also the links to the articles about the facts of how many were killed under the Shah. The figure 3000 inlcludes those killed in running armed street battles against the Shah, and many armed and dangerous terrorists.

The story of the execution of children by the Fedayeen was truly horrible. During the revolution days, after the sabotage of Bakhtiar's govt. by Jebhe Melli luminaries like Sahabi, Sanjabi and Frouhar, and its subsequent fall, many of these terrorists also attacked several schools in Tehran with machine guns killing students, including small children. One of these schools was Rostamabadian in North Tehran, which had a British curriculum. How many children were killed that day, I don't know, but many were shot and killed. Why they attacked is also another mystery that remains to be solved.

Back to the article that mentions Palestinian trained Iranian terrorists. Many of them trained in camps furnished and fully paid for by Mo'mar Qaddafi in Libya, which was like the club med of international terrorism in the 1970s with the PLO, IRA and even the Beider Meinhoffe and Brigade Rosse. It should also be noted that he had risen to power by overthrowing a monarchy and had sworn to overthrow all the monarchies including the Shah of Iran, thats when he supplied terrorist training camps to Iranian terrorist groups and also the IRA in the '70s. Recently, Qaddafi was busy plotting to assassinate members of the Saudi royal family, he devleoped the plot with the aid of the head of the US Muslim Association (who was arrested recently for the plot and confessed) and as soon as he had finished the setup of the plot, he came out with his new friendly I give up terrorism new face with the US. Hmmmm

As for Nehzat e Azadi, they have no support inside of Iran, and are much despised by many. Their arrests recently, barely invoked a single outraged eyebrow on the part of anyone, that is how little they are respected.

What is needed more than enything else is the sustained exposure of these historical facts through articles, television shows and hopefully documentaries that can reach the highest number of Iranians.

To update this thread, and it will be updated regularly, meant to provide some background on the character and role of the "revolutionaries" who overthrew the Iranian government, the following article, in the form a book review by Amir Taheri, focuses on the "Islamic-Marxist" faction of our reactionaries, namely the MKO/MEK.

Let's say it right from the start: this book is a masterpiece and a must-read for anyone interested in such subjects as sects, thought control, terrorism, and totalitarianism.

This book is a masterpiece not because it is well-written. In fact, it is not. Banisadr's style, a mixture of business reports and women's magazines' confessions, at times exasperating. Nevertheless, it is a masterpiece, perhaps, because it tells a moving story, what am I saying, a shattering story, honestly and unencumbered by the artefacts of literary style.

Masoud: Memoirs of An Iranian Rebel could remind some readers of Arthur Koestler's classic "Darkness at Noon", an account of how Communism can turn perfectly sane and well-educated men and women into delusional maniacs.

To tell the truth, however, I find " Masoud" even more moving, if only because the ideology that destroyed Masoud's life was more bizarre than Marxism-Leninism.

Masoud Banisadr, the writer of these memoirs, is a 51-year old Iranian-born science graduate who joined the Mujahedin Khalq (People's Combatants), one of a dozen or so guerrilla groups fighting the Shah in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Mujahedin had a special appeal because they mixed Islamic themes, which had become popular in Iran in the 1960s, with leftist slogans that had attracted some Iranian intellectuals between the 1940s and1960s. The Shah called them "Islamic-Marxists", a label which, though not accurate, was not off the mark either.

By 1978 when the Islamic revolution was bursting on the Iranian scene like a tsunami in a lagoon, the Mujahedin were regarded as selfless, and ruthless, fighters for the cause, whatever it was. They had murdered dozens of people, including bank officials, ordinary policemen, provincial clerks, and, more spectacularly, several American military technician hired by the Shah.

During the revolution, the Mujahedin acted as the vanguard of the movement. They attacked and burned banks, restaurants, bookshops, cinemas, and other "places of sin". They also assassinated army officers, policemen and gendarmes.

Throughout the revolution, which took less than a year to triumph, the Mujahedin praised Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini as a political idol. They invented the slogan " God is Unique, Khomeini is the Leader!" (Allah Wahed! Khomeini Qa'ed!) All along, however, the Mujahedin leaders believed that Khomeini, an old and apparently frail cleric, would seek no political role after the Shah.

When the revolution triumphed, it was only natural for the Mujahedin to expect a seat at the high table. By the spring of 1979, however, it had become clear that the new revolutionary regime would not only refuse the Mujahedin even a side-chair but also regarded them as something of a nuisance.

Struck by hubris, the Mujahedin leaders persuaded themselves that Khomeini had "stolen" their revolution. They could not admit that it was Khomeini's leadership and charisma, and not Mujahedin acts of terror, that had mobilised the masses and ensured the victory of the revolution.

Emboldened by a few allies in the new revolutionary establishment, notably a prominent mullah called Mahmoud Taleqani, the Mujahedin embarked on a policy of provocation against the new revolutionary regime which, in time, persuaded Khomeini that the only way to deal with them was to destroy their organisation.

While all that was happening, Masoud, our memoirist, was a student in England working on a Ph. D in a scientific subject. He had been attracted to the Mujahedin in 1977 and militated on their behalf in one of their many front organisations known as the Muslim Students Society in Northern England.

An Ideal Catch

Masoud was the ideal catch for the Mujahedin.

He had had a turbulent childhood marked by his parents' divorce and remarriage. Both his father and his step-father had been army officers who neither wanted to nor did manifest any hostility towards the Shah. Masoud, however, grew up in an atmosphere created by two decades of intense anti-Shah propaganda by the regime's many enemies: from the Tudeh (Masses) Communists to disgruntled mullahs and passing by the leftist guerrilla groups already mentioned.

Together they had created an anti-Shah culture based on a number of lies, misrepresentations, and hallucinations. They dreamed of revolution not only as a means of getting rid of the Shah but also, perhaps especially, to sort out their inner contradictions.

During the revolution the Mujahedin had told Masoud to love Khomeini and hate the Shah. He had done so with exceptional devotion. He recalls how he had not been able to go to sleep without cursing the Shah and praying for Khomeini.

But when the Mujahedin broke with Khomeini, the ayatollah became their chief object of hate. Masoud was told to hate Khomeini and start loving the Mujahedin leader Masoud Rajavi. He did so without any qualms. Suddenly, it was Khomeini that he cursed and Rajavi that he prayed for every night.

Masoud Banisadr had missed the revolution in Iran and felt almost cheated. This was why the idea of a second revolution, this time against Khomeini, a revolution that would give him a chancre to prove how selfless a fighter he is, appealed to him.

To sum up Masoud Banisadr needed four things to give his life meaning:

A set of lies that he could believe as absolute truth. These had been provided by the Shah's enemies for years. A new version of them was now manufactured by Khomeini's enemies. The Shah had been presented as an "American agent". It was now Khomeini's turn to be accused of being in cahoots with the Americans and the British.

Someone to worship and someone to hate. Until 1979 the Shah had provided the hate figure while Khomeini had represented the love idol. After that Khomeini became the symbol of hate and Rajavi of love.

The illusion that there was an historic or even a divine mission that one had to undertake on behalf of one's nation, if not mankind as a whole.

A cocoon in which to escape from the real world and build an alternative universe. The Mujahedin offered precisely such a cocoon.

From 1977 until he broke with the Mujahedin nearly 20 years later, Masoud Banisadr was a prisoner in a parallel world created by one of the most ruthless sects seen in the last century.

As a member of Mujahedin he was ordered to burn all his books, notes and documents, which he promptly did.

The typical Mujahed was ordered not to read anything not authorised or published by the Mujahedin. He could not even read the Koran unless asked to do so by the organisation with its own commentaries. The Mujahed could not go to cinema, unless on an organisational mission; could not watch television or listen to radio except those controlled by the organisation, and had to refrain from forging any relationship with "outsiders." The Mujahed's children had to attend special schools controlled by the orgasiation.

The idea was to totally isolate the Mujahed from the outside world and gradually kill his critical faculties. He was to be left with a single view of the existence: the fiction created by the " Supreme Leader" Masoud Rajavi and his aides.

At a later stage the Mujahedin were ordered to stop loving their wives or husbands and children because that would reduce from their love for Rajavi. But then Rajavi decided that that, too, was not enough. He ordered all Mujahedin to divorce their wives or husbands. Once they had complied, the " Supreme Leader" ordered the Mujahedin to eliminate their natural sexual desires. Special agents would check the Mujahedin's urine sample to see if it contained " traces of sexual excitement", whatever that means.

At a still later stage the male Mujahedin were ordered to transfer all the top jobs to their female colleagues and accept the superiority of women over men.

In the meantime, Masoud Rajavi had divorced his second wife, a daughter of Abol-Hassan Banisadr who had briefly served as President of the Islamic Republic under Khomeini. But Rajavi was not bound by the rules he fixed for others. He asked his number-two Mahdi Abrishmachi to divorce his wife, Maryam Azodanlu-Qajar; and the latter promptly complied. A few days later Rajavi announced that he had married Maryam, Abrishamchi's divorced wife. The Mujahedin were ordered to celebrate the event as a great revolutionary and historic event, which they did without zeal.

The idea was to show that Rajavi was the only person who was above all laws, man-made or ordained by God.

The Mujahedin not only accepted whatever Rajavi did but also went out of their way to present his deeds as sacrifices on his part. He had fled from Tehran to Paris, hidden in women's clothes aboard a hijacked aircraft, and presented his escape as " the most courageous act of heroism", and the Mujahedin had believed him. And when Rajavi signed a "treaty" with Tareq Aziz, then one of Saddam Hussein's top aides, to help Iraq in the war against Iran, the Mujahedin hailed the move as "a great patriotic act."

Needless to say the Mujahedin had no qualms to take up arms, enter Iran under the wing of the invading Iraqi armies, to kill Iranians and burn their villages in the name of their revolution. Rajavi had told them to hate America for years. But, after 1983, he urged the Mujahedin to do all they could to win Washington's support, including collecting information for the CIA. In the lexicon created by Rajavi, treason meant patriotism, and freedom was nothing but blind obedience of the chief.

The reader might assume that Banisadr wrote his memoirs to unmask and discredit Rajavi. Paradoxically, however, Masoud Rajavi emerges from this book with a less ugly image than that of his followers, including our talented memoirist.

Doing What He Did Best

After all, Rajavi did what he knew best: building his personality cult.
When he was propelled into the leadership of the Mujahedin in 1979, Rajavi was a 30-year old ex-student who had spent six years in prison.
He had virtually no higher education and his political experience was limited to a few armed attacks on isolated gendarmerie posts and a failed attempt to kidnap the American ambassador in Tehran. Nevertheless, he was hailed by tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of young Iranians, most of them students or graduates, not only as a political leader but also as a saviour.

In other words, it was those young enthusiasts who had a problem not Rajavi. All that Rajavi did was to comply with an old Iranian dictum: if the people act as a donkey, just ride them!

Masoud Banisadr, our memoirist, was roughly the same age as Masoud Rajavi. He was better educated than Rajavi because he had completed his university course, obtained a PH.D, and learned English. He had also more practical political experience because he had organised a student union , managed fund-raising events, and lobbied British parliamentarians, journalists and trade union leaders. And yet, Masoud Banisadr regarded Masoud Rajavi as almost a god. He was ready to lie, cheat, betray and even kill for Rajavi.

Banisadr was not alone.

Almost all the Mujahedin cadres were better educated and more experienced than Rajavi. But Rajavi was able to play with them like toys. He would order them to divorce their wives and they would do so without protest. He would tell them to hate each other and use abusive language against their closest comrades, and they would do so with zeal. He would ask them to laugh or to cry, and even, quite literally, to dance for him and they would do so like circus bears.

So: who was it who had a problem?

Rajavi or those who helped build his personality cult?

Lacking education and experience, Rajavi acted on animal instinct. He realised that the revolution, which many had dreamed of but few had really wanted, had produced large numbers of rootless people looking for a measure of certainty.

Rajavi was clever enough to know that only well-educated individuals could be deceived in a big way. Ordinary people, the illiterate peasants and semi-literate workers, could be deceived in small maters, but never on big ones, if only because they lacked the imagination needed to believe big lies. For example, no Iranian peasant shed a tear when Stalin died in 1953 while many Iranian poets wrote qasidas to mourn the Soviet dictator. No Iranian peasant or worker joined the Khomeinist movement until after the Shah had shown that he was no longer able to play the role of the " father."

At one point in 1988 Rajavi boasted that the Mujahedin were the only organisation in which people with university degrees were a majority. He was more right than he had imagined. His sect included famous poets, writers, entertainers, footballers, and scientists.

Among his worshippers were a grandson of the late Dr. Muhammad Mussadeq, the idol of anti-Shah bourgeoisie, several of Khomeini's closest former advisers, and numerous defectors from various Communist outfits.

Now put yourself in Rajavi's place.

You see that so many people, all of them your superiors by education and experience, come every day to worship you as an idol. They tell you are the greatest, the cleverest, the bravest, the best-looking, the most blessed of the human species EVER created.

What would you think?

If you have a sense of humour you might think that they are pulling your leg. But if you suffer from egomania, as Rajavi did, you would believe that you are doing them a favour by letting them worship you.

During the last 20 years of their activity, the Mujahedin caused the death of at least a quarter of a million Iranians. Their hit-squads and suicide-bombers killed hundreds of officials, religious leaders, and personalities of the Khomeinist regime. In their border attacks on Iran, from bases in Iraq, the Mujahedin killed large numbers of innocent Iranians. In turn, the regime executed thousands of Mujahedin members and sympathisers.

Masoud Banisadr's memoirs are particularly chilling because he makes it clear that there is no complete cure for political self-deception.

Masoud Banisadr managed to get out of the Mujahedin after almost 20 years. But he has not managed to get the Mujahedin out of himself. He still defends their criminal project and has difficulty hiding his hateful admiration for the sect.

The reader would be astonished that Masoud Banisadr still considers himself to be " in love", not physically of course, with Maryam, Rajavi's third wife who was appointed by the latter as " President of Iran."

Is it because Maryam symbolises the mother-figure that Masoud Banisadr had always craved for?

More importantly, Masoud Banisadr has not cured his initial ailment, the need for someone to hate irrationally and someone to love beyond reason. Today, his object of hate is Masoud Rajavi. And, if my reading is correct, his new object of love is Dr. Mussadeq.

Fortunately for Banisadr, Mussadeq is dead and would not be able to ride him as Rajavi had done.

The final chapters of this book read like a thriller. We see Masoud Banisadr trying to escape from the clutches of the sect. At one point he narrowly escapes being kidnapped by Mujahedin goons at Baker Street in London, and shipped to Baghdad.

Masoud: Memoirs of An Iranian Rebel is a book not to miss.

Please, please , someone translate it into Arabic, Persian and , in fact, all other languages of Islam. And quickly!

Thank you for the information on the Rostamabadian tragedy. You know that I agree with you on resisting the efforts by Iran's enemies, parading in various outfits, in de-emphasizing the importance of history and our, and their, past. As Iranians scholars such as Shafa and Sotudeh have pointed out, our's is a cultural crisis, a crisis of identity due to an induced historical amnesia. The good news is that those inside the Islamic Republic's iron curtain, despite years of sustained propaganda by the IRI and those who have no choice but to falsify the past, do remember the past. To give you but one example, the Mullahs, communists and what Faramarz calls "liberals" not only destroyed the tomb of Reza Shah the Great but they also published innumerable books vilifying him. Ayatullah Faramarz, appealing to the "Left", even compared him with Hitler right here on this board! Another anti-Iranian, Masoud Kazemzadeh, doing the same, calls him an "ethnic cleanser." Yet, to their chagrin, today Reza Shah the Great is the most popular contemporary historical figure in Iran.